Tuesday, August 23, 2016

FREEDOMWORKS 08/23/2016

1. Crony Capitalism is a Feature, Not a Bug, of ObamaCare - via Reason
Earlier this week one of the country's largest insurance
companies, Aetna, announced it would be leaving about 70 percent of the
exchanges where it provides coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Then
it was revealed by The Huffington Post that Aetna's true motivation for pulling
the plug was in reaction to the government's opposition to the company merging
with another major health care insurer, Humana.
But as David Harsanyi writes in a new column for Reason,
"If true, this would be the least surprising development in the past six
years of Obamacare fiascos. Any giant regulatory scheme bringing together big
business and big government inevitably leads to cronyism and corruption." Read more here...2.Freedom Caucus' Jordan Eyes Another Push to Oust IRS Chief - via Roll Call

Rep. Jim Jordan and other conservatives are reviving efforts
to press the House to impeach IRS Commissioner John Koskinen as the embattled
agency head tries to woo Democrats and undecided Republicans.
The Ohio Republican, chairman of the House Freedom Caucus,
said in an interview that he and other allies were weighing the use of
procedural tactics similar to the July bid by Louisiana GOP Rep. John Fleming
to bring up an impeachment resolution as a privileged measure bypassing committee
consideration. The measure calls for formal impeachment of Koskinen for
misstatements and a failure to cooperate with a House investigation of the IRS'
handling of tax-exempt status requests from conservative groups. Read more here...

In Our Lost Constitution, Senator Mike Lee tells the dramatic,
little-known stories behind six of the Constitution’s most indispensable
provisions. He shows their rise. He shows their fall. And he makes
vividly clear how nearly every abuse of federal power today is rooted in
neglect of this Lost Constitution. Get your copy here...

It is easy to forget that bad policy ideas aren’t limited to
one particular political party. Recently, Hillary Clinton proposed $275 billion
in infrastructure spending over five years and $225 billion in loan programs
through a national infrastructure bank. Not one to be outdone, Donald Trump
pledged to double Clinton’s proposed spending, saying in an interview with Fox
Business, “We need much more money to rebuild our infrastructure.”
As it stands now, neither candidate is looking at other ways
to address our country’s infrastructure by empowering states to prioritize
projects based on their needs, without the influence of bureaucrats and special
interests. The top-down, federally-driven approach to infrastructure will be
preserved. Read more here...5. Oppose the Obama Administration's New Rules That Eliminate Financial Options for Low Income Americans- by Kenny Stein
An estimated 10-12 million customers in the United States use
short-term loan products each year. These customers tend to be lower income,
the type of people who often cannot afford bank accounts or other financial
products offered by traditional financial institutions.
But short-term lenders are unpopular among big government
leftists, so the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has proposed new
federal regulations that would virtually eliminate these loan providers. As for
their customers, where will they go the next time they need an emergency short
term loan if they face an expense they can’t immediately cover? Federal
regulators apparently don’t care. Read more here...